


Part 5: D.I. Hardy

by kw20742



Series: Something Like Love [6]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 15:37:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15633645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kw20742/pseuds/kw20742
Summary: Missing scene from 2.5, immediately after Hardy leaves Jocelyn’s. The same evening as Part 4: "Quid Pro Quo."





	Part 5: D.I. Hardy

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene from 2.5, immediately after Hardy leaves Jocelyn’s. The same evening as Part 4: "Quid Pro Quo."

Jocelyn gives Alec Hardy a final nod as he closes the garden gate behind him and heads back down to the harbour. It’s dark now, and, to the southeast, the lights of fishing vessels flicker across the Channel. Save the streetlights and the occasional car headlights moving across the downs beyond, the tiny expanse of Broadchurch is in shadows. It’s a warm night. For May. And very still. Almost too still.

Out of habit, the beginning of her bedtime ritual, Jocelyn turns the lock on the French door and closes the curtains. She means to go back to work. She heads for the kitchen and pours herself a glass of wine, finishing off the bottle of red that she and Maggie got started earlier over their Indian take-out. Glass to hand, she retrieves her reading glasses from the dining room table and sits back down to her prep. She’s cross-examining Nigel Carter in the morning. And depending how that goes, she’ll decide whether to talk to Mark Latimer about getting in the witness box. There’s a gap in his alibi, and putting him at Sharon’s mercy could easily backfire on her. She’ll have to thread the needle carefully.

She’s trying to concentrate, but her conversation with D.I. Hardy keeps nagging at the periphery of her thinking. She’s never told anyone that before, that she missed the person she was supposed to be with. She’s never even put it quite like that to herself before tonight. And she certainly would never have predicted that she’d reveal to anyone, let alone a relative stranger, that it happened because she’d been weak. A coward.

So, no, to answer his question, it hadn’t been her choice to remain unattached. But on the other hand, it most certainly was. Jocelyn finds this ambiguity unnerving. She likes truth. Facts. That are straightforward and unequivocal. But life, she’s relearning (and it’s a painful lesson), hardly ever has the qualities of a well-argued prosecution.

Perhaps she chose to tell that eccentric, intense man, of all people, about her mistake precisely because he _is_ a stranger. He’s safe and, she knows (despite playing fast and loose with procedure at times), accustomed to keeping secrets when necessary. She also suspects that Alec Hardy shares her predilection, if not also an admittedly perverse fondness, for gloomy solitude. A self-imposed penance for past sins. She understands and respects this about him.

What is it they say? That people come into your life for a reason. And they’ll teach you what you need to learn from them. If you’re wise enough to listen.

And bloody hell, his words are loud right now.

She takes off her reading glasses and massages her temples. She can feel a headache coming on.

She does still wonder what prompted him to make a will, tonight of all nights, and why he walked all the way up here for her to do it this evening when there are several quite fine solicitors within a small radius of Broadchurch who would have been more than happy to help him during working hours. Still, whatever it was that prompted him to “put things right,” as he phrased it, he’s got her thinking about what it would take, and what it would mean, for her to do the same.

What would happen if she apologizes, explains that she was afraid? That she was wrong. That she was weak when she should have been strong. What if she tells Maggie that she loved her? Loves her still, after all this time.

But she can’t quite move on to imagining answers to the questions, because her doubting self, the self even Maggie doesn’t know, chastises harshly, “To what end? You never were good enough for her, never did understand why she wanted to be your friend in the first place. Never have been a particularly good friend to her. And now you’re blind as a bat, and thousands of pounds in debt. What the bloody hell could Maggie Radcliffe possibly want with a cantankerous, blind old woman who’s been hiding all her life?”

But abruptly, almost as if propelled by some inexplicable force, Jocelyn is up and over to the stairs before she’s entirely aware of having made the choice. She heads up to her bedroom, to the antique steamer trunk at the end of her bed. She hasn’t opened it in years, not even when she sold and emptied the London flat three years ago. The movers just swathed the whole thing, contents and all, in bubble wrap and a moving blanket and loaded it onto the van. Next time she saw it was six hours later, being carefully carried up the stairs and into the master bedroom by two very large and capable men. They removed all the wrappings, and put it where she’d asked them to. And there it’s sat, its contents undisturbed.

And although she hasn’t opened that trunk for probably a decade or more now, her photographic memory enables her to know, to the minutest detail, what is in there, and precisely where each item is. So she won’t need to rummage to find what she’s looking for.

She can remember that resolute walk to her kitchen in the flat fifteen years ago, Maggie’s letter tight between the fingers of her right hand. It was a frigid, grey day at the end of January; she hadn’t taken off her shoes and coat, chilled as she was after her brisk walk from chambers, and determined to do what needed doing, once and for all. She remembers grabbing a used grocery bag from her stash in the pantry, walking into her bedroom, taking Maggie’s scarf from underneath her pillow, placing the unopened envelope between the soft folds of blue and green wool, and putting both in the white plastic bag. She didn’t even take one last sniff of the scarf, to recall Maggie’s scent.

Twisting the bag shut and folding it to stay closed, she placed it in and amongst the artifacts of her most precious memories. “That is all Maggie can ever be,” she remembers thinking, “a memory.” And she remembers closing the lid of that steamer trunk and then numbly warming up a frozen dinner in the microwave.

Standing in front of that same trunk tonight, Jocelyn remembers all this as if she had done it yesterday. She might as well have, for how fresh the hurt is, the regret. But, strange as it may seem given her depth of feeling for Maggie, she’s hardly thought of that the small, soft package since then. She couldn’t. She knew it was safe there. Along with her other treasures. A lovely memory of the happiest six months of her life. But no more than that.

Tonight, though, Jocelyn is finally able to acknowledge that she locked her heart away in that trunk, too. Because she had to. Or, rather, she thought she did. She had steadfastly ignored that evening what she already knew to be true, even then. Had she been self-aware enough to listen and brave enough to act. She had found her life with Maggie. And to lock away the artifacts of the time spent with her, Maggie, meant shutting her heart down, and her feelings off.

But Jocelyn’s carefully constructed compartments have been breached since taking on the Miller brief. They are indeed at severe risk of structural failure. Especially those that concern Maggie.

Standing here with the trunk open before her, she can see a corner of the milky white plastic grocery bag peeking out from underneath a photo album, just where she left it. She uses the side of the trunk for a bit of support to get down onto her knees. And then long fingers that seem to belong to someone else pinch at that corner and pull the bag up to the top of the trunk’s treasures.

Barely breathing and with shaking hands, Jocelyn cradles the little package. She unfolds and untwists and then removes the green and blue wool scarf, lifting it to her nose. It is as soft to the touch as she remembers, but the colours seem brighter, more vivid. They are the colours of Maggie’s eyes, she realizes, the colours of a Christmas bauble bought at Fortnam and Mason all those years ago. Does Maggie still hang it on her tree each year? Maybe this year, she dares to hope, they’ll spend Christmas together again, and she can find out. And she is delighted to discover that the scarf does, indeed, even after all this time, still smell like Maggie. Sweet citrus, coffee, and a hint of tobacco.

To hold in her hands this treasure, this connection to the woman whose handprint is forever on her heart, is almost more than Jocelyn can bear. But she welcomes the emotional disorientation, the well of tears that threaten to spill, the warmth that spreads into her core. She isn’t afraid of these feelings anymore; rather, she sees them for what they are. They are signs of life. Of finally living. Of profound healing. The tight wall she erected around her heart all those years ago has begun to crumble. She didn’t know she wanted it to, _needed_ it to. But Maggie did. Precious Maggie.

Smiling fondly, she inhales Maggie’s scent one more time before gently laying the scarf down on the brown and blue Persian rug to unfold it. She slowly peels back the layers to reveal the unopened envelope addressed to the London flat in Maggie’s confident hand. The black ink is a bit faded with age, the stiff white linen paper is a bit yellowed, and one corner has got a bit folded, but it otherwise looks just the same as when it arrived in Jocelyn’s letter box fifteen years ago.

For the smallest of milliseconds, Jocelyn wonders whether or not to read it tonight. She has much yet to do before tomorrow, so she worries about the endurance of her eyes. And, admittedly, she’s concerned, too, that whatever Maggie wrote to her all those years ago may send her into yet another spinning vortex of regret and despair and self-loathing. Jocelyn knows that, before the letter arrived in her letterbox, Maggie had already called the flat at least twice and left a message with her clerk. This letter was her last attempt to… What?

Jocelyn will never know unless she’s brave enough to open the envelope sitting on the floor in front of her. Despite her best efforts, all her meticulously constructed compartments are already collapsing all around her. Maybe she should stop trying so hard to maintain them. The effort is emotionally exhausting, and it’s not doing any good anyway.

So she decides: Her heart is raw, ready. To finally face Maggie’s truth, her response to Jocelyn’s betrayal. For that’s what it was. She understands that now. She had embedded a silent promise in that New Year’s Eve kiss on Maggie’s doorstep, and then, not eight hours later, ripped it away. In the most heartless, cowardly way imaginable. She thinks back to D.I. Hardy’s advice and wonders, "How could I ever put things right after that?"

She picks up Maggie’s letter, turns it over in her hands, and peels open the flap, old glue giving way easily. The decision is made with such certainty that it’s almost as if she’s known that’s what she intended all along. Having foolishly left her reading glasses downstairs, though, she has to squint to read it around those fuzzy white spots. But read it she is determined to do.

 

> _22 January 2000_
> 
> _Dear Jocelyn,_
> 
> _You’ll never know how many drafts I’ve gone through to get to this point. I am a writer, but I find myself rendered inarticulate. There are so many things I want to say, to ask._
> 
> _I don’t know what happened. I can imagine. I can guess. But I don’t know._
> 
> _Did I do something to put you off? I’ve perseverated over every moment, every conversation. All the old insecurities of youth have come back to me: I’m not smart enough, not sophisticated enough, not posh enough. Not attractive enough._
> 
> _Or are you afraid? Of us. Of what people would say, of what being with me would mean. For you. For your career. Are you afraid of me? I’m just plain Maggie. Who loves you. There, I’ve written it down._
> 
> _We could make it work. Together._
> 
> _I’ve called the flat. Twice. I’ve left a message with your clerk. This is the last you will hear from me. I have no interest in making myself ridiculous._
> 
> _Please talk to me. Please be in touch. Please return my calls. Please let me love you._
> 
> _M_

 

Jocelyn’s breath is short and fast. Maggie Radcliffe had loved her!

Would it have made any difference, she wonders, if she had had the courage to read this letter when it first arrived? Maggie allays here at least one of Jocelyn’s doubts back then, which was that their relationship was transient, a one-off. But, Jocelyn catches herself: she knew full well at the time that it wasn’t. She just chose to ignore that knowledge. It wasn’t a doubt, but an excuse. So, no, she is ashamed to admit, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference.

Bloody hell, she scolds herself. She wants to hug Maggie close to her, answer all her questions at once, assuage her doubts: You are not ‘just plain Maggie.’ You are beautiful and brave and dynamic and brilliant. I admire you. I love you. But I am not worthy of you. I’m not good at caring for others, I don’t know how to be close to people. And, yes, I was afraid. Terribly, horribly, desperately afraid. Of you. Of me. Of me when I was with you.

Maggie had loved her. Might she love her still? Jocelyn can’t ignore the little flutter of hope in her belly.

But, as if seeing in colour for the first time, it suddenly dawns on her that she’s been fooling herself all these years, believing it was her heart, her happiness alone that she had risked when she ran away. But it hadn’t been. Jocelyn had broken Maggie’s heart, too, and lost her trust in the process. How could Maggie think that she had done anything to cause Jocelyn to behave so atrociously? That was the worst part. And look what it had cost them both. So many years, so much doubt, so much regret.

Gathering up Maggie’s scarf, the letter, and the now empty plastic shopping bag, Jocelyn gets back to her feet. She will put it right. She’s not sure how, or when. Or if it’s even possible. But she will try. For tonight, though, there is much work to be done to be ready for court tomorrow.

She slips the letter back into its envelope and rests it against the lamp on her bedside table. She will read it again soon. And again and again.

The bag she rumples to toss it into the small bin by her dresser, but then reconsiders. This little bag has done good work. It kept these artifacts safe until Jocelyn was ready to face that they had never been, never could be, just memories. The grocery sack has, in and of itself, become part of the story of her life, a treasured memory all on its own. A reminder of mistakes made that may yet still be remedied. And so Jocelyn smooths it, folds it, and puts it back into the trunk, closing the lid. Maybe someday soon, she will have the opportunity to tell Maggie the part it’s played in their lives.

Lastly, despite it being such a warm evening, she wraps the folds of green and blue wool around her neck and goes back downstairs to her work, inhaling essence of Maggie all the while.


End file.
